iphone as kind of the best known phone. >> rose: we conclude the historic week in rome with a tour alongside a new friend pierre fran chest co, an italian actor. >> what they want me to say -- >> rose: you were born in rome. >> i was born in rome and raised in rome. >> rose: the pope, the economy, the smart phone and a tour of rome when we continue.

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captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with continued analysis of the historic events in rome. all eyes on the vatican. on wednesday evening, jorge

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berguliglo many saw him as a surprise choice. he's the first jesuit. pope francis is known for humanity and long time service to the poor. he inherits a troubled church much reconciled tradition with a modernizing world. joining me now in rome and new york, monsignor lorenzo al katie and frank bruni and on the phone from rome daniel wakin to talk about what has happened since the selection of the new pope -- why this pope. >> two main reasons. one is significant cardinals really did want to go in a different direction. i think they wanted someone that into of could interject a hint

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of humanity and solidarity with the poor. a tough administrator. and the other part which is hard to figure out is due to the internal policies of the conclave and the jockeying of different groups and different nationalities of card numbers. that's a little harder to make out because so much is based on whips of information. the latter part it looks like the main italian candidate angelo -- was undermined by opposition from the italian cardinals themselves. that sunk his candidacy which opened the door for people to coalesce around francis. >> rose: i assume in opposition to scola the arch bishop of milan was cardinal sheriff. >> it wasmented so much that they were opponents that shera

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was considered another non-insider alterative if you know. the inviders versus outsiders. you had cardinals worked for many years into the vatican who knew the ways and tainted by various reports of scandal and mismanagement and there was a strong feeling amongst the college that an outsider was needed to come in and clean things up. it was sort of interesting because the main outsider was seen as an italian, angelo scola who doesn't have types but was seen as plausible and the candidate the insiders was in fact an out sider who is cardinal shera from brazil who has european rules but who is the arch bishop of sao paulo and seen someone who has experience at the vatican and can sort of keep things running smoothly and not be too much of a threat to the insiders. a lot of this is supposition and

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it's reading tea leaves and it's hard to nail this down but that's the general flow of things. >> rose: being there and talking to lots of people including cardinals beforehand was the idea that there was not much as you said speculation about him by people who have an interest in journalist or so called as you say vaticanologist. none of them had him at the top of the list as a leading choice or in fact as a necessarily compromise choice. >> now that he's been elected it seems like the obvious choice. i think one of the big reasons was the age factor because so many of the cardinals have been saying ahead of time we need a younger man. extreme youth in this world is considered like 63. so he's 76 and he just, he wasn't on the radar but he was such a prominent player in the

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last conclave, you'd think he would be a natural. but you know, people overlook that. there was also the accepted wisdom that can come in second, it's bad form to then be elected. it's sort of in a way it's something of a slight on your predecessor. but really the resignation of benedict may have changed that whole way of thinking. if he can resign, well then such taboos are now over. >> rose: you said an interesting thing which you said which was the idea of first of all was he a man of faith, and secondly, was he a man who could govern. governorring seemed to be an important quality here. >> definitely. there's a real sense that things have to be straightened out. there was a great feeling of drift under benedict. his mind was focused on writing his biography of jesus and being a theologian and he was somewhat aloof and removed from matters. i don't cover the vatican

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closely i don't have a complete handle on his papacy. you can't have a shera come in who doesn't have the whole package, projecting piety and projecting a sense of faith that will stimulate people to return to the church or reinforce the church. that's got to be essential really at least in the minds of the cart numbers. >> rose: stay with me, i wanted to bring in monsignor.

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>> i wanted to say something. he was latin american and the church in latin america is very important to the church and the holy sea. >> rose: because that's where the growing numbers are. >> it's not just a question of numbers, it's a question where the battle has been going on for the past 10-15 years to decide whether the faith or being a catholic can change a society and justice to it. the liberation of theology. cardinal -- had to deal with that because mainly john paul the second put it on his lap. >> rose: right. >> he's always been hurt to the church giving priority to the poor. >> rose: who is that. >> ratsinger. >> rose: pope benedict. >> exactly. this guy is from latin america.

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the church in america has made a commitment that has extended to the whole world which we start particularly start latin america which called the preferencionual option for the poor. i think his assignment is to show that works and it's not just piety. it means living and forming and working -- >> rose: you think he's more interested in those kinds of objectives, reaching out to the poor and making sure that the church serves the poor. than he is being so steadfast on some doctrinal issues. >> it depends -- divinity of christ. but anyway, yes. but i think it's what he would be concerned about is not just the prevention of the poor and the doctrine on the other specified but the link between

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the two. is there one. we have a double kind of life. >> rose: link between commitment to the poor and? >> piety. look, i watch a lot of the coverage. by the way i thought it was particularly good but one thing stood out for me immediately and it went on and on and on. there wasn't a single report of what is happening in which the name of jesus christ appeared. the church appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with this man that lived 2000 years ago. today the real challenge facing the church is this man credible. >> rose: let me just go back to the point i made earlier. that's a very important point. is this man credible meaning jesus christ. >> yes, yes. >> rose: because. >> the name. >> rose: because frank, i

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mean dan, one of the points you made in your piece this morning was is he a man of faith who connects to christ. >> yes, i think that's true. i think we also should look at what's happening with the church in latin america. it's true, it really is the most vibrant, one of the most vibrant places in the world for the church but it's also a place where they're losing lots of catholics. a big rise of secularism and they're losing a lot of the faithful to van gel cull sects. this is he has to deal with. along with the theology, there's also a very strong evangelical movement within the catholic church and within various parishes. it's called charismatic renewal. and the question is how far, i

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think, will the church go in allowing this. i mean, for instance, cardinal shera in sao paulo cracked down, he didn't cracked down but he expressed some dissatisfaction with one of the most charismatic priests there who was a guy who has huge masses in warehouses and is a television star and everything. and he was not pleased with that kind of portrayal of the faith. so i'm sort of curious to know what francesco as he's called here is going to do with that. >> rose: i'll bring in frank bruni now listening to this. what do we expect. realistic expectation of change that this pole will want to bring. >> i don't think we'll see change in doctrine which we referred to. that stuff will stay the same. where i think there's change and an amazing opportunity here is to change the conversation the church is involved in and the conversation the church is

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having. the monsignor mentioned the word poor, crucial word here. we have a pope here who seems to have a very different humbler style, who has a humble material life and for the last 48 hours or however long it's been has made very important symbolic statements about a man of the church. the church has gotten involved in morality partly because of the child awe by crises. the mission when it comes to the needy and poor has gotten lost and has left center stage. i think the biography and the iconography of this pope will allow him if he wants to, to put that part of the church back on center stage. >> rose: what do you mean by iconography. >> choosing the name st. francis. st. francis was the patron st. to the poor. choosing that name is sending a message. paying his hotel bill when he left. getting on the bus with the

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other cardinals. it's going to be interesting to see how long he can keep that up because of course as with the president, a pope has a security apparatus. a lot of that stuff is going to be hard to continue. but if he can keep finding ways and opportunities to send the message, i am one with the humble of the world. i am not aloof, i'm not arrogant. those are two words a lot of catholics have come to associate with their leaders. i think he can do an enormous amount in terms of changing the church's tone and the kind of conversation it's engaged in. >> rose: monsignor, you're in constant communications with various factions within the church. >> yes, of course -- who would win. [laughter] >> rose: you mean it's politics. >> of course it's sacred politics. i like the phrase to change the conversation because i think a conversation has a language, a grammar, a whole context in

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which the ideas and the realities lies. i think changing it so the church can start almost from scratch and read the scriptures associated with jesus and the poor from scratch. and that's what's called the new realization. after all, the term was born in latin america and was first interpreter like that. the new evangelicallization. >> rose: is that part of the reason the church has been challenged. the catholic churches numbers in latin america has declined as a proportion of the overall population and the pentecostals and the others. is it because they, some have expressed a closer commitment to christ and the teachings of christ. >> yes. >> rose: and not sort of trick stuff. >> no. yes, right. i mean, i'm not saying that's not the catholic church what

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could distinguish catholicism as a life of symbols. realty of the presence of christ through symbolic actions. these evangelical churches don't have that but they have it immediately experience on those who go there, they compare it to the radical boredom so many of the parishes. they are attracted. i mean, i remember i once went to a funeral down there and the person who had the funeral was protestant, that the mother was catholic. and she asked me to be there. and he delivered a fantastic sermon. the catholic priest came and it was awful. it was very, i mean what do you expect how sad it is he died and we'll take care of whatever he wants. completely hallmarkish. then came the minister and it was -- >> rose: body of christ.

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>> i almost join right then and there. >> could i ask the monsignor a question. >> rose: yes. >> one of the things that, one of the first things that francis did was he went to st. mary major and he prayed before the sign there and laid flowers on the altar. do you think that one of the ways the catholic church can win people back and be attractive in latin america is to emphasize the virginia mary -- virgin may as sort what the protestants don't have. >> do a point. you don't want to over emphasize. but the answer is yes, that is a catholic view anyway of the role of mary to bring people to christ. i remember seeing in los angeles once the church it was on the corner of a street and it said pentecostal church our lady of guadalupe. i mean these are completely

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incompatible. if you're pentecostal you don't care about the lady of guadalupe and all of that stuff. so they saw it, the people who would go to it and not be afraid. >> rose: i want to move to this question. he's a jesuit, first jesuit. what does that mean. >> i'm not sure what that means in this case because he doesn't actually, he's not like a lot of other jesuits. >> rose: he's a conservative jesuit. >> that's right and there's some built-in contradictions the monsignor could probably speak about this better than i can beyou're supposed to i was chew careerism and material goods. he's done the latter. he's not living a life of opulence with designer loafers. but certainly the pope would seem like a career es promotion. it would be to good see the jesuit with the promotion.

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>> rose: the fact he chose the name francis do we know it was francis how far assissi had he was modeling himself after. >> yes. >> rose: the reason for that is francs of assisi was a person of that. >> it was a saint who had a devotion, personal devotional doing what he contributed to the church. >> rose: dan was there any sense there was an arch bishop who wanted this job, and knowing that if you thought he was coming out as a pope, enter as a pope you come out as a cardinal he didn't want to campaign for it. how did he pull it off. >> i think he did the exact opposite. he did not go in as a pope because as we said before we were all so surprised. he really stayed in a lot, he didn't appear in public before the conclave. on the sunday before, many of

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the cardinals went to their churches that have been assigned to them and delivered, you know, celebrated masses, delivered homilies and i went to the one by cardinal shera. i was sort of had my money on him. even written his profile already to go. so i went to, and it was packed with television cameras. they were more immediate people than worshippers. he was pointing his camera. it was kind of a circus. kind of the thing you don't want to do. and guess what cardinal bergoglio did not go to his church, he stayed in on sunday. >> rose: he didn't do anything the way i was told. >> he pulled it off by not trying. >> rose: that's what he did. the speech when they all got up 115 and made some kind of talk

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that cardinal bergoglio talked about the spiritual mission of the church and this whole thing we've been talking about that was the message to his fellow cardinals. >> you can find it in youtube, you can find the entire speech. this is true. you could be pope, in fact i wish i remember the exact phrase. you could be border patrol you could be bishops you could be priest you could be religious and you could be layman and you could be all kinds of things like that. but when you speak you do not seek to present the glory of christ, you are not his disciple. >> rose: they heard. it's something everybody says what an obvious choice when you look back at thing. >> we have yet to consult for us

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a minor little thing like the holy spirit. [laughter] >> we evaluate all of this in political terms, the analogies. >> rose: it's so nice to see you again. >> you too. i keep looking for fried chicken places but i can't find them so i'll call you. >> rose: that was the only mission i gave you. >> yes, i know. >> rose: frank is also a source for me too. thank you, frank bruni, thank you. what's the title of the piece you're writing this week. >> i don't know it's not finish. that's what i'll go do now. >> rose: dan thank you i know you have a dinner in rome and i'm very envious of that but thank you for staying with us. it was great insightful and i think helpful to understanding the historic events and moments that took place in rome this week. thank you. >> thank you. good to be there. >> bye. >> rose: thank you very much. we'll be right back and talk

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about the economy. stay with us. alan krueger is here, he's chairman of the whitehouse council of economic advisors. today he presented the economic report of the president. this is what it looks like. the report found that while much work remains, the economy's healing and moving in the right direction and it could create newed head winds. the sequester was signed in law in march 1st full effect is remain to be seen. all eyes on washington. i'm pleased to have alan krueger back at this table. welcome. >> my pleasure. >> rose: what's the essence of this which is sort of like asking moses of the ten commandments which are the important two. give me the essence of what you discover and you want the american public to know. >> you touched on it. the u.s. economy went through a traumatic period. financial crises was extraordinarily deep. we lost $16 trillion in wealth.

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but we are digging our way out of this problem. we've regained now almost 15 trillion of the lost wealth. over the last 36 months we've added private sector jobs every month, a total of 6.4 million. that's good enough. that's not good enough for this president. he made very clear the state of the union that his north star is creating an economy that provides more middle class jobs. every day he's focused on what we can do to make america a magnet for jobs but we're pointed in a better direction. we make the point in the introduction that even though economics is often called the dismal science, it's really a hopeful science. it's hopeful in the sense that we can point the way to the policies that can help us to recover and build a stronger economy for the future. and we can also point out some of the pitfalls. right now one of the major pitfalls we're facing one of the message head winds we're facing is sequester heading in the wrong direction. the budget cuts are occurring at a time when the economy is getting back on its feet. >> rose: you have a

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fundamental economic theory of the way the economy worked at a time like this that too much austerity and too much cutting will impede growth. >> i think we have to choose a responsibility balance path so i think that's right. we don't want too much cutting but at the same time we do need to address our long run fiscal problems. when the president came to office, we were not on a sustainable fiscal path because of the tax cuts because of the unpaid four wars because of demographics. so we need to do two things at once. we need to support the economy in the short run, investorring in infrastructure putting construction workers back to work, making america important competitive in the future and also address the problems causing a long-run deficit which are healthcare rapidly growing healthcare costs. we can improve our tax code by closing all the tax loopholes that we have. that's what the president has been focused on since frankly since i started working for him back in 09. >> rose: do you believe, are

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you hopeful that somehow the capitol, the dinners the lunches that are taking place that there's somehow a change in the dynamic of the conversation? >> i think the president is willing to try whatever will work. i think that it's a pretty high hurdle he's facing. i say that because the president worked awfully hard because of the congressional leadership to reach a grand bargain. we set as a goal as a number of others have to rules the deficit by 4 trillion dollars over the next decade. we made substantial progress. two and-a-half million. we didn't reach a plan then because speaker boehner decided to go to plan b. if we couldn't get to the bargain then i don't know if it's any easier now. it's hard for me to say what has changed from their calculations. but the president is going to try whatever will work and try to be helpful with this process. >> rose: just a couple points about what's happening in the most. one is as you know, there's some

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question as to the process that led boehner to leave the negotiations for the grand bargain at that time and whether the president said i need more, i need more revenue and that caused boehner to say we can't do that and the deal was not that and i'm out of here. that's one. the other is who actually called for the sequester and those two things have been in discussion and now the administration accepts responsibility or at least that the notion to begin the sequester conversation came from the whitehouse. >> i think you need to put boast -- both of those issues in contest. the sequester came about because of the negotiations over the debtceiling. the administration wanted to clean increase in the debtceiling. when we were facing a potential disaster because of reluctance on the part of congress to raise the debtceiling. we saw a solution which we hope

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would not be put in place. no one expected it to be put in place. the idea was to have a commitment mechanism we wouldn't need to force us to make better policy decisions on the sequester. and in the negotiations, what i was referring to was the fiscal cliff negotiations at the end of last year, where the matters were very close. the president did not ask for more revenue in those negotiations. he actually asked for less. he had 1.6 trillion in his budget, came down to 1.2 trillion. i will point out charlie the president has done unusual he's kept his last offer on the table. he didn't retreat and say no i want to go back to that original figure. he kept some very difficult offers on the table to reach a bargain, including entitlement reforms. and so the president has been looking for a balanced way to do this. and in some sense it's the other side that moved. the speaker was offering $800 billion for the loopholes to

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close which would get us a long way towards balance now. >> rose: let me come to what's happening now. because the president having had the dinner with the republican senators and lunch with paul ryan and yesterday going over has said that he doesn't believe that the republicans clearly understood what he had on the table. because as the republicans continue to say if the president would present us with a budget and his view of entitlement cuts, then we could have a serious discussion and he has not done that. the president seems to suggests he understood that they clearly did not get what he had said before. >> i think that there's something to that. i'm struck when i meet people who say the president doesn't have a plan. >> rose: so why do you think that is? serious well meaning people don't believe the president has a plan. >> it's a mystery to me. you could go write on the whitehouse web page and find offers for the cpi, the medicare reforms, loopholes that we would close. i don't know, but -- >> rose: that's the plan

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you're talking about then. that's the president's complete plan. is it negotiable? >> the president has never said my way or the highway. he's looking for a solution adamist. what he has said he wants to balance the approach where it doesn't fall on the middle class on seniors on students trying to get student loans. but there are other ways of doing this. it doesn't have to be the particular tax loopholes we suggested closing the way we want to close them. we're open to discussions about that. >> rose: paul kruegerman was on this program with joe scar borough who got a little attention and the debate really was about how serious the debt crises was now. what's the whitehouse view on that idea because krugman suggests that the level of the percentage of debt to gdp now, about 74-75 is pretty much projected ahead for the next seven to eight years and

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therefore the debt doesn't present that big a problem to be solved now. >> i think krugman is much more right on that question. but, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't address our long run problems. so if you look at the congressional budget office's projections, our budget picture is much brighter over the next ten years. we're close to being at a point where the debt is not growing in the size of the economy over the next ten years. but because of demographics, because of rising healthcare costs, if we don't address our problems, these issues now, it's going to be a much bigger problem further down the road. that's why the president has been focused on supporting the economy on the near term, investing on infrastructure helping the teachers and first responders on the job while we make reforms that will restrain the growth of healthcare costs. >> rose: if you looked at the u.s. economy if you can't deal with the healthcare costs you're going to be plagued by issues that will restrict our capacity to grow. >> absolutely. it will crowd out other

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investments we need to make. one of the reasons why healthcare costs having growing slowly is because of the reforms with the affordable care act. if we remain on this slower trajectory which is a big if, our problems will be much more manageable down the road which is why i think it's very important to think about the kinds of healthcare reforms that can slow the growth of healthcare costs but maintain the high quality that we have. >> rose: what level of economic growth is necessary in the short term, four or five years, to return the united states to prerecession employment levels of 36%. how much does the growth have to be? 3%, 4%? >> in that range. and what we've seen partly because of demographics, the growth that we've had over the past few years has brought down the unemployment rate. but not fast enough. so faster economic growth will lead to more job growth.

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we have a problem right now with long term unemployed. 40% of the unemployed have been unemployed for half a year or longer. it's very important that we continue to support the economic expansion, so that they stay in the labor force so we don't lose their skills and their productivity. and also that we, the types of programs that will give them higher level of skills so that they have better job prospects, are job search assistants so they have encourage to keep looking for a job and encourage to do that. stronger growth will certainly help. what we've seen is that at the rate we've been growing, at the 2% range, that that has slowly brought down the unemployment rate. not fast enough. >> rose: your former economic professor at harvard said more than once that the cheapest incentive for growth in the economy was confidence.

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is that still true? we have a problem of the absence of confidence in the economy. >> confidence is an issue. confidence is gradually coming back. the longer the recovery continues, i think the more confident people will be that we're not going to slip back. that's very helpful. also, confidence is coming back because people see their balance sheets are looking better. >> rose: but are they prepared, you see the balance sheet is looking better, are they prepared to make better investments in the future which is plants and people. >> well first of all i think the investments are going to follow what households do. if households feel that their balance sheets are stronger and that their consumption is picking up, we've seen this for autos. then the investment will follow. and i think that kind of -- >> rose: investment follows consumption which mean demand. >> that's correct. we want to get on a virtuous cycle where we have faster job growth, higher income growth, more consumption and more investment to meet that demand. >> rose: what's the

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implications of $9 per hour wage. >> i think if you look at the experience in the u.s. that raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour will help our low wage workers. it would return the value of the minimum wage after inflation to where it was in 1981 when ronald reagan came to office. studies that have looked at the effect of the minimum wage on employment find negligible effects of modest increases in the minimum wage, interestingly survey of economists done by the university of chicago found that half of the $9 hour minimum wage would have a negligible effect on employment. but would raise incomes of low wage workers and by a factor of four to one the economists supported the increase. >> rose: when you look at housing, what impact does it have? >> housing is one of the bright spots we're seeing currently in the economy. and we have a chart in the economic report of the president where we looked at how much overbuilding took place in the

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boon years. we estimated back in 1998 council of economic advisors estimated we needed 1.8 million new housing units based on family formation. yet we were building well over two million, two and-a-half million so we had this excess stock. then construction came almost to a grinding halt. we had been working off a lot of the excess and i think we're poised for continued expansion and housing. nationwide we've seen home prices stabilize and then grow. we've seen construction rising and we're seeing more sales. all of that's very positive development and we're going to keep pursuing the kinds of targeted policies that we can to build on this progress. help families refinance their mortgages, help them modify mortgages. >> rose: some suggest this that it will never go back to where it was because companies at a time of recession learned to increase their productivity and that therefore means that they need less people to do the same thing. >> i think there's some of that.

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recession is times when companies look around and say how can we be more efficient. at the same time we need to be more resourceful as a nation and start up new industries. we need more entrepreneurs. one of the benefits that our country would see from comum sense immigration reform is a more entrepreneurial economy. that will put people back to work and create new industries. so i don't believe that destined to have high employment or weak job growth. before the recession the u.s. economy was not providing opportunities for middle class workers and was becoming increasingly more difficult for workers to go to the bottom, middle class and above. >> rose: so it can cure what problem. >> well, i don't want to raise expectations because the negotiations are very difficult. >> rose: this is what the president said. it may be that the differences

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are just too wide and maybe that ideologically their position is we can't do any revenue or we can only do revenue if we've got medicare or gut social security or gut medicate if that's their position we won't be able to get a deal. they might turn around and say something like that. if the president insists of getting more revenue and resist any cuts in medicare social security or medicaid then we can't get a deal. that's the problem. that's how they view it and that's how the administration views it. the places seem to be not closing that much. >> i think it would be very unfortunate if we missed this opportunity. the president insists on a balanced approach. that's the right approach for the economy. he hasn't said my way or the highway. you can see where we could reach a deal. the speaker said there are $800 billion in tax loopholes that could be closed. there's potential revenue which won't slow down the economy. in fact probably good for the economy because it would get rid of a whole bunch of distortions.

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at the same time, we've made some progress. it would be unfortunate if we can kind of close the bargain. you asked what's at stake. what i would say is an opportunity to address our long run problems which you're going to need to address at some point. the sooner the better and also would help with confidence as we discussed earlier. >> rose: this is not either or for you, addressing the long term debt and looking at the economic growth in parity. >> we need to do both at the same time. >> rose: do you believe the significant entitlement reform for the republicans is the same as significant entitlement reform for the president. >> you know i think one could see a path towards an agreement that's how we felt just before christmas before the speaker left the negotiators with the president. >> rose: on the spending side on the entitlement reform side. you can see a path to agreement. >> i think you can see the path. it's a difficult path. >> rose: how. >> the speaker proposed closing tax loophole that would raise $800 billion. the president's only asking for

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$600 billion. on the entitlement side the president said he would change consumer price index. >> rose: is that all he's prepared to do. >> no, i wasn't finished but that's something the economists consider a more accurate gauge of inflation. $400 billion in medicare reforms. now, the republicans might want to do it in a different way but there's only overlap. means testing medicare. that's one of those thing where a lot of people say we didn't realize the president was for it. so there is some overlap there. so i think one can see a path. the hard part is the politics. the hard part is does the politics in congress allow them to get there. >> rose: politics means getting re-elected. >> i think politics means satisfying their constituent and my expertise -- >> rose: both in terms of public service or getting re-elected or both? >> i think unfortunately our system has been dysfunctional in

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that if you look if he steps that help to solve our longer run problems the economy in the short run you can see a path to get there. but because of the way the political system is structured partly because of the money that comes into politics where it's so easy for a small number of very wealthy individuals to influence a large group of palm titionz that makes it harder to follow that path. >> rose: the economic of the president is out transmitted to the congress in march 2013 together with the annual report of the council of economic advisors. thank you, it's a pleasure to have you here. >> my plsh. >> rose: we'll be back in a moment stay with us. competition is heading up. samsung unveiled its late else mobile device the galaxy s4 yesterday. it was introduced at a buzzing radio city musical event in new york city. samsung is the world leader in smart phones. the company hose to surpass apple which is currently first in the u.s. mobile market.

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co-executive editor of all things the blog i'm pleased to have walter mossberg. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: you have not seen this galaxy 4s have you. >> well what these companies do is they introduce them and then after a certain number of when they get enough units in, they give them to reviewers like me and we kind of put them through real world testing and so they want to be sure they have a productionunit that can hold up to. i'll get one shortly and i'll kind of torture test it. >> rose: then you'll come back and tell me what you found out. >> i will be happy to. >> rose: samsung targets apple's home turf, exploring the galaxy. this is the the "new york time" samsung on apple term.

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come to u.s. to unveil galaxy s4 device. this is really being pitched as a giant battle between the iphone and the galaxy, yes? >> right. and here's the way that i think people have to think about this. android is an operating system which is owned by google and used by samsung and many others is the dominant mobile phone operating system in the world but there hasn't been one android phone that had the sales and the clout and the profile of the iphone. now, samsung has made tremendous progress with this galaxy line of phones. they have other lines of smart phones by the way which is why they're the worldwide leader when you combine them all. they've made this galaxy name and the kind of style of the phone something that people finally begin to recognize one of these android phones in a big way and it rises above the pack. it's not quite, it's kind of a

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tipping point moment this year. they're not quite, as the stories say in the u.s., they do not outsell apple, it's the other way around. and even globally apple claims not that it's outsold all samsung phones but that it did outsell the previous galaxy. tappal sold almost 50 million iphones just in the last quarter. so this galaxy s4 with a lot of marketing because they're out spending apple on advertising and the teachers they put into it, they're hoping this is the one that takes over in the u.s. and globally as a kind of what these companies called a hero devise. the lead device the one that will knock off the iphone as the best known phone. >> rose: you took the question out of my mouth. it is what's necessary to be that heroic device. >> well, i mean they have to

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have something you can do it a lot of ways. you can charge a cheap price. they didn't announce a cheap price. i assume it will be a cheap price because there's a lot of expense in the build of this phone. that's one way to do it. another way to do it is to have a feature or a couple of features in the phone that really grab the public's attention. and this phone has translation, it has some features that they say, and i'm going to test this but that they say can detect if you're looking at, suppose you're looking at a video and you look away the phone knows to pause that's kind of cool. there are some other companies that claim to be doing that on their phones not apple. and you know, it just has a number of, it's a higher resolution camera. >> rose: right. >> my initial impression from the list of features and i'm not judging the product because i haven't tested it, it seems like each of these is really a nice

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niche but not necessarily a game changing feature but we'll see. >> rose: what would be a game changing feature? >> i don't know. the last ... look the reason the iphone has lasted through all these iterations since it came out in 2007 as a big deal was that it was a dramatic thunder clap game change. you and i talked about it on the air at that time and there hadn't been anything quite like it. and there are other products, the ipad, another apple product was like that. there are other products like that too. samsung has taken a more incremental approach, a lot of marketing, good engineering, will bring in features apple doesn't v will bring in multiple ones. but the down side risks for them is that it just looks like a list of features and there's not one that really stands out big in the consumer's mind. so their marketing may help take care of that, we'll have to see. this is a phone that is five

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inches diagonally in the screen measurement. apple is four inches. the android phones in general, not just samsung but htc, motorola, all the android guys have tended to go for bigger screens that are wider and taller. and there are people who love that. i was just talking to someone an hour ago who, you know, does design stuff and likes the fact that the screen is bigger. there are other people that feel it's too big in their hand or it looks funny when they hold it up to their ear when they make a call. so you know, they have a base of people that like that. apple went for a kind of a taller and skinnier look because they felt better in the hand. and the truth is charlie, it's hard at this point in the game, almost six years after the iphone came out, it is hard to be a game changer and to really distinguish yourself. and samsung's trying with a number features and with the

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size of the phone. it's nice and thin. if it has great battery life that could be another one. >> rose: what's at stake if galaxy can reach the sales or surpass the sales of the iphone 5. >> well there's a lot at stake for apple. the iphone is their biggest product. not the mcintosh anymore. the ipad is their next biggest product so the ios devices, that's the name of the operating system they use. and you know, there's a lot of pressure on apple right now to do another game changing supervise high impact thing. the kind of thing that steve jobs was famous for. you know, the stock market has been skittish. consumers who like apple products are looking for something big. maybe it's not in phone maybe it's the long rumored television set. they're working on a super smart

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watch. they've got to do something. there is pressure on apple. samsung has for several years, i've talked to samsung executives privately in korea and here for several years. they don't care about any other competitor. their aim has been totally a appear al. there's pressure on tim cook and apple to delight the public again with something big. and their next big event is going to be in the spring, juneish, may or june. and we'll see what they do. >> rose: blackberry has a new device coming out. >> i don't think apple feels nearly as much pressure. i don't think it's remotely close. the pressure they feel is from sat sung. >> rose: thank you so much, glad to have you. >> glad to be here. >> walter mossberg from the wall street journal. stay with me. >> rose: i began this trip on

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the vespa. he was my guide. >> you can do this. >> rose: you're born in rome. >> i was born in rome and raised in rome. >> rose: i'll just follow you. >> is it all right with you if i go faster. >> rose: oh sure. but rome, a magnificent city, and the opportunity to see it first hand on a vespa was a wonderful remarkable experience. our first stop, the coliseum. >> if you come here at night not a lot of tourists around, you can really enjoy what it must have been once. it's really, you know, this is the core of rome. this is really the part of rome. >> rose: speaking of history,

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that is one of my favorite quotes from lord byron he said the stands for coliseum -- and when rome falls the world. >> let's hope it doesn't happen. >> rose: the lord's got it right. >> yes, exactly. >> rose: this is the arch of constantine. >> yes. that was built tokc want. >> rose: okay, i'm good for

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it, all right. >> you have to turn your back. >> rose: all right, here we go. together on three. one, two, three. if you do this you can return safely to the eternal city. >> that's right. >> rose: do you know who my friend is. >> these are tourists. >> rose: the majestic sites as we rode back to st. peter's square the heart of vatican city. we started here and come back here. this has been really a remarkable experience. >> thank you. >> rose: it's great to meet you. if i'm ever going to have a ride on a vespa, this is a city to have it in. what i may offer you is to come back to new york i'll break out two vespas and we'll do the same thing in new york. >> that would be nice. >> rose: thank you. >> thank you very much. my pleasure.

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>> rose: couldn't be better. there it is, our trip by vespa looking at the monuments and the scenes and the roads of rome. you cannot ride a vespa in rome without extraordinary camera people and production people, the crews from cbs news allowed me to have this remarkable opportunity, especially two camera people. first in h hop law and scott must not raw. it's a journey i will always remember and hope to go back to. thank you for joining us, see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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>> announcer: the following kqed production was produced in high

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definition. ♪ calories, calories, calories! >> wow, it rocked my world! >> it just kind of reminded me of boot camp. >> i don't know what you had but this is great! >> it almost felt like country club food to me. zbl don't touch it.

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hi, i'm leslie sbrocco. welcome to "check, please! bay area," the show where regular bay area residents review and talk about their favorite restaurants. now, we have three guests, each one recommends one of their favorite spots and the other two go to check 'em out to see what they think. this week -- edmond sullivan, a teacher and resource specialist, was on a quest to find the best new york steak in san francisco until he finally discovered the one that made the grade. and fire fighter-engineer and paramedic suwanna kerdkaew's emergency search was to find an upscale eatery. it had to be suitable for a